Best city in the world: it's south of here

Decades of inter-city bickering resurfaced yesterday with the release of findings that Sydney's southern rival, Melbourne, has the best living conditions in the world.

Melbourne and Vancouver, on Canada's west coast, despite their weather, reached the number one position in a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.

The survey, which assessed the level of hardship for expatriates in 130 cities, ranked Perth third with Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide eighth.

"Really we found very little wrong with Melbourne, it's just about the perfect city," said Bill Ridgers, the survey's editor.

Cities were rated one to five in 12 categories covering health, safety, culture, environment and infrastructure. The higher the score, the more hardship residents suffered.");document.write("

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Melbourne's humid weather and slightly lower availability of recreational activities prevented it earning a perfect zero. It scored one, with Perth two and Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane on four.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said winning the survey

"confirms everything we know about Melbourne as a great international capital city with a great environment and a great transport system".

The deputy Premier of NSW, Andrew Refshauge, said Sydney had this year been awarded first place from a number of UK publications Conde Nast, The Observer and the United States' Travel and Leisure Magazine.

Sydney lost points for its level of violent crime, which was said to match levels in New York and London.

The Lord Mayor of Melbourne, John So, said the result for the "safe and welcoming city" was well deserved, but the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Frank Sartor, said there should be no jealousy or rivalry between the cities. He thought it was "brilliant" that five Australian cities made the top 10.

"It's about being Australian before being a parochial Sydneysider," he said.

London was joint 44th with Hong Kong, Lisbon, Madrid and San Francisco. New York was 52nd, equal with Dublin. Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby was rated the worst.